Jason Wu
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Jason Wu, champion of the nipped-in waist and strong shoulder, has long had a love affair with powerful women. His collaboration with models like Adriana Lima (who opened his fall collection) and supers Stephanie Seymour Brant, Christy Turlington, and Karen Elson (who have fronted his latest campaigns) reveals his type: strong, sensual, and not afraid of getting down to business. At his show yesterday afternoon, the Jason Wu woman was out in full force.
The designer’s line-up employed a rich interplay of texture rendered in a refined palette of black, plum, navy, and putty, and applied on slinky draped silk gowns, soft knits, wide-legged wool trousers, high-necked blouses with pin-tucked detailing, and below-the-knee skirts. A smattering of beading and paillettes accented the collection. “I started with textures, letting the fabrics tell the story,” Wu said backstage. “There’s a lot of interesting plays on velvet, manipulating the fabrics, and using as little seams as possible, so the dresses seem to defy gravity, like liquid,” he continued. “They move so beautifully and they caress the body in the most gorgeous way.”
Wu contrasted the richness of his evening and daywear with major statement coats realized in a mix of fur, astrakhan, shearling, and cashmere—a trend Wu described as “North Face gone haute.” The designer also presented elegantly tailored suiting, a 20th-century update erring more on the side of Katharine Hepburn than Marlene Dietrich. “Beautiful tailoring was the root of it all. A little tuck, a little shape that you see in the back, luxurious volume, a voluminous sleeve —in ways it felt like a really nice progression of what I’ve been doing. It felt so feminine and appealing for today’s woman,” Wu explained. “She’s always strong.”
For more from New York Fashion Week Fall/Winter 2014, click here.
